Speaking of the Coronation oath, the Cardinal said: “I entirely and frankly accept the decision of the country that the King must be a Protestant. They believe that this is in some way bound up with the welfare of the Empire. WITHOUT GOING THIS LENGTH, I am convinced that in the present condition of the English people, HAUNTED AS THEY ARE BY FEARS AND SUSPICIONS, it is expedient that the King should be of the religion of the overwhelming majority. Besides, the King being, in virtue of Royal supremacy, head of the State Church, it is impossible that he should be other than a Protestant. Catholics have no difficulty in paying most loyal allegiance to a Protestant Sovereign. In this they seem to be of more liberal and confiding temper than those who would refuse allegiance to a King unless he professed their creed. The Catholic has no difficulty, because he gives his allegiance and his life, when needed, primarily to the civil power ordained of God.” (The Cardinal did not pause here to try and explain why God has thus “ordained” a Protestant sovereign instead of a Roman Catholic one! Yet no doubt he will admit that God knows best.) “The Sovereign REPRESENTS THIS POWER, whatever be his religion. Was it not Catholic Belgium that placed the Protestant King Leopold upon the Throne, and gave to him at least as hearty a devotion as ever has been shown to his Catholic successor? Other Catholic States are ruled by Protestant Sovereigns. And who can say that the 16,000,000 of German Catholics are a whit less loyal to their German Protestant Emperor than the millions who are of the Protestant or of no religion? There are people, I believe, pursued by the conviction that we Catholics would do anything in the world to get a Catholic King upon the Throne; that the Pope would give us leave to tell lies, commit perjury, plot, scheme, and kill to any extent for such a purpose; that there is no crime we should stick at if the certainty, or even the probability of accomplishing such an end were in view. Now let me put it to our Protestant friends in this way. If the King of England were an absolute Monarch, the dictator of the laws to be enacted, and his own executive, there might be something of vital importance to our interests and to those of religion to excite in us an intense desire to have a Catholic King. Though even then the end could never, even remotely, justify the means suggested. But how do matters really stand? We have a Constitutional Monarch who is subject to the laws, and in practice bound to follow the advice of his Ministers. A Catholic King, under present circumstances, would be a cause of weakness, of perpetual difficulty, and of untold anxiety. We are far better off as we are. Our dangers and grievances, our hopes and our happiness, LIE IN THE WORKING OF THE CONSTITUTION, not in the favour or power of any Sovereign. IT IS THE PARLIAMENT, THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, THAT WE MUST CONVERT, or at